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Programmatic Advertising: A Brief History & Predictions for the Future

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Programmatic Advertising: A Brief History & Predictions for the Future

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I chose this article, because I felt it was good article to talk about the history of programmatic advertising and why it exists. The author formulates the article to look at the history of how programmatic came to be in order to derive the question of “Why does it exist?” He touches on not only the PC and internet history such as Googler launching Adwords to the explosion of smartphones. Our lives are so digitally driven, that programmatic plays on that fact that everyone has access to digital media, and therefore can be reached by digital ads. Programmatic is the system with which digital advertising can be bought and sold.

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In recent posts I've covered what programmatic ad buying is and how the market is set to develop in Asia-Pacific.

Here I'll look at why programmatic exists and make some bold predictions about its future.

But before we start, I'd just like to highlight that Econsultancy will be hosting a webinar on the subject, Programmatic: Trends, Data and Best Practice (APAC), on 15 October at 10am Singapore / 1pm Sydney time.
Click here to book your spot.
Why programmatic?

It's good to know what programmatic ad buying (or 'programmatic') is and estimate how big it will be in the future. But to achieve a deeper understanding of the topic, it's helpful to look at the circumstances which have caused programmatic to exist.

That is, why do we have programmatic buying? Isn't our existing ad infrastructure good enough?

To answer that question, we need to go back - way back - and track the evolution of the online advertising

A brief history of advertising on the web

The first banner ad appeared in 1994 on the website Hotwired. And, according to legend, the format was so new and revolutionary that it had a 44% click through rate. (As a comparison, banner ads today get .06% click throughs - more than a 99% decrease).

By 1996, many more people had joined the web and the number of websites grew enormously. Brands, which initially negotiated ad deals with popular sites, found it increasingly difficult to keep track of their banners.

Because of this problem, DoubleClick, among others, created 'ad servers' which helped to produce and distribute ads on the web.

But as the web kept growing, it became difficult to manage the various relationships required to serve ads across different websites. So in 1998 the first 'ad networks' were born.

The ad networks helped brands advertise on many websites through one ad dashboard. The media landscape became manageable once again.

But by the late 90s, with the dot-com boom, the web was growing too fast for these networks to keep up. Web crawlers and portals, like Excite and Yahoo, emerged to index and categorize the web, but many felt at the time that the web had become too fragmented for effective advertising.

By 2000, though, Google had developed a search engine which, almost miraculously, made the ever-expanding web accessible again.

And then in 2000 Google, the great organizer, launched AdWords. AdWords was sharply different from the ad networks as it delivered ads against just about every site on the web - while the user was searching.

It made effective advertising possible again.

Google followed on by developing its own massive banner ad network (AdSense) in 2003, so with relatively simple interfaces brands were able to reach just about the whole web.

Video advertising followed in 2006 with YouTube, and soon after Facebook started delivering ads against the social graph.

Of course, I am skipping over a lot of details here but by 2007, it looked like things were pretty much under control.

Every time the web became more complex, new technologies emerged to organize the media landscape and help advertisers reach their audience effectively.

And then things changed

In 2007 Apple launched the iPhone and Google followed shortly after with the Android OS, and over the next four years, the whole game changed.

Have a look at this chart to see what I mean:

Over the four years or so after the launch of the smartphones, the price of internet-connected devices plummeted, ownership spread like wildfire and internet usage has skyrocketed.

And between 2007 and 2011, the number of internet users doubled.

And daily usage grew by 50%.

And we are not done. Internet users are set to double again this decade, from 2bn in 2010 to over 4bn in 2020.

And usage, as we can see above is on an upward trend as well.

How we consume media has changed too

And this proliferation of devices and growth of time spent on the internet is not the whole story. We also consume our media differently now as well.

With mobile devices, we now access the internet on-the-go and in random places and are subject to constant distractions. We consume media more in the 'stream' of social, messaging apps, or short videos, and less in a nicely-structured HTML page.

All of this adds complexity and brings us back to an environment that's incredibly difficult for brands to figure out, and means we are less effective at measuring advertising ROI.

What are we going to do?

To see what is going to happen, and what we should do, we need to look back to the history of online advertising.

From 1994 to 2007, the web grew and became much more complex just like now, and new technologies emerged to help advertisers navigate the new media landscapes.

Ad servers helped serve banner ads more efficiently. Ad networks organized publishers. Google indexed the whole internet - and let us advertise on it.

So how might this possibly happen again? How are brands going to reach consumers in such a fragmented media landscape this time?

Here's what we need to do

I believe the answer lies in the programmatic ad buying infrastructure that is being developed right now. If you look at the diagram below (and please read the previous post for details), you can see the building blocks for the future of online advertising.

The SSPs will hide the complexity from publishers and the DSPs will do the same for advertisers.

Trading desks will deliver the single point of contact experience for those who need it and first and third party data will be managed by DMPs. Analytics and optimization will be available at every node to help with ROI.

In short, with such an infrastructure brands can concentrate on the message they wish to deliver and who they wish to reach, and technology will take care of the rest.

Now some sites, notably Google and Facebook, have a different approach.

They are attempting to organize the web once again and offer brand marketers simple, yet powerful, access to their network.

But if mobile devices, usage, and behavior keep changing at the same rate, I think the distributed programmatic environment is a much more robust solution. It offers a high-level abstraction of the core components necessary to deliver advertising across a complex array of devices, interfaces, and publishers.

Whether we have the actual products now is debateable, but the architecture that is evolving does makes sense and, by many accounts, it is set to take over display in the next few years.

So now what?

Well, if you feel like you're late to the game, you're probably not.

As Mary Meeker showed in her 2015 Internet Trends Report, mobile advertising is severely lagging behind other mediums if you consider time spent vs. dollars spent.

And as most mobile advertisting will soon be programmatic, according to a recent eMarketer report, if you can capture that time spent on mobile with programmatic advertising you are probably still ahead of most others.

If you're wondering where to start, ironically the best place may be on Google and Facebook. I say this because even as they try to absorb the web into their own sites, they now offer 'programmatic lite' ad engines.

And by becoming familiar with the vast features and analytics available on those platforms, you will be preparing yourself for more complicated programmatic ad buying in the future.

The future of programmatic

Of course there are many other challenges for programmatic. It's facing big issues from ad blocking, ad-free messaging apps, and privacy concerns.

But keep in mind that the web has always seemed a difficult place for advertisers. New technology has organized the chaos before, though, and it seems likely that it will do it again.

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Programmatic advertising: A brief history & predictions for the future - Econsultancy

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In recent posts I've covered what programmatic ad buying is and how the market is set to develop in Asia-Pacific. Here I'll look at why programmatic exists and make some bold predictions about its future.

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A History Of Programmatic And The Era Of Control

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A History Of Programmatic And The Era Of Control

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This article was especially interesting to me. The author goes a little bit deeper into the subject and talks about the early days of RTB and how it was able to evolve because of the need to buy and sell online advertising in a way that was fast, efficient and cheap. Programmatic has shown not only to display these characteristics but it could also be controlled. With programmatic, you are able to refine your target market. With television, you can only reach those who watch television, but if you are able to get on webpages of popular sights, you can reach a larger market and from there refine it to your specific market you are trying to sell. The author brings this up in the article on how the ability to control is a reason for programmatic.

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"Today's column is written by Ming Wu, chief revenue officer at MightyHive. Data-Driven Thinking" is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
Programmatic has come a long way. The constant refrain heard at industry events over the last year is that all media will be programmatically bought in some manner.

But what does that mean exactly, and why is it happening? How can we be clear about where we are going? Will programmatic soon give way to something else, such as artificial intelligence-driven marketing?

I found myself needing to answer these questions recently and thought it would be relatively straightforward. I've been on the front lines of programmatic over the last decade as a publisher, an agency trading-desk president and a brand CMO in charge of taking programmatic in-house.
The RTB Early Days
But it wasn't that easy to answer these questions, and as I talked to industry colleagues, there were many different perspectives.

The typical explanations were largely first-order in nature. Sure, everything should be data-driven, especially with marketer first-party data. And who can argue with lower costs and better performance, whether real or perceived, or streamlined operations and efficiencies in digital-media buying? And publishers need access to the ever-increasing programmatic demand being driven by advertisers and agencies.
Agency Programmatic and Premium Inventory

But all of these explanations still leave out the question of why many believe all media will one day be bought programmatically and whether something fundamentally changed along the way. Also, is programmatic getting long in the tooth after nearly 10 years, especially in the rapid-fire world of digital marketing?

Starting as an auction for display media, real-time bidding (RTB) led to the advent of demand-side platforms (DSPs), which were in high gear circa 2011-2012. To be doing programmatic at the time was synonymous with buying remnant inventory at a discount versus traditional insertion-order (IO) buys.
The Era Of Control
Programmatic demand was dominated by direct-response advertisers and performance marketing. Ad networks were also in full swing and starting to use programmatic to access media through their own DSPs or a third party's. With all this complexity, agencies played a valuable role in making sense of the plethora of digital options available. And publishers could monetize ad space their sales teams couldn't sell, further fueling supply.

What transpired in the years following sheds some light on why programmatic is so strong today. First, because everyone could buy the same or similar inventory through a DSP, agencies saw an opportunity to supplant ad networks.

Given ad networks' wide profit margins, it wasn't hard to outperform them and still deliver savings to clients. This shift made programmatic mainstream for the world's largest advertisers. While that was happening, DSP private marketplaces and Deal ID functionality were born in a game-changer that automated traditional IO buys and brought them under the umbrella of programmatic buying. Layer on the idea that a buyer could target specific audiences across all of these, and now we were cooking with gas.

But something had fundamentally changed. In a few short years, the media fragmentation that dominated digital-media buying since the early 2000s was greatly simplified. And programmatic supply graduated from remnant to premium placements, including video and home pages. With new controls at their fingertips, major brands and their agencies piled on.

What's happening now in programmatic is not dissimilar to the change in the financial industry when online brokerages such as E-Trade and TD Ameritrade emerged. The information and access to exchanges previously held by a broker at Merrill Lynch or Smith Barney became democratized, and anyone with an internet connection could manage their own investments. Even IPOs, the financial world's premium supply, became accessible online.

The era of control has taken hold in marketing, powered by a long list of technological bells and whistles. But in this case, marketing professionals are taking control of marketing platforms unlike in the financial world where any novice could take over their own trades. Logic says marketers should have high success rates, and the continued increase in programmatic marketing investment would support that. Add two more accelerants - 1) the scrutiny placed on transparency and hidden fees throughout the industry 2) and marketers' desire to protect their own proprietary data - and control becomes a driving factor in 2018.

Programmatic is here to stay: We are not going back to manual IO buying or digital marketing plans fraught with fragmentation and waste. Advancements such as AI-driven marketing will likely live on top of programmatic foundations, if not the tech itself.

It wouldn't be surprising if the word programmatic gives way to something else that better describes the work being done. But in the meantime, savvy marketers are making decisions about which parts of the ecosystem they want to own. Whether it's the technology, data, processes, execution or all of the above, there is no doubt they are taking more control than ever before.

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A History Of Programmatic And The Era Of Control | AdExchanger

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"Data-Driven Thinking" is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today's column is written by Ming Wu, chief revenue officer at MightyHive. Programmatic has come a long way. The constant refrain heard at industry events over the last year is that all media will be...

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The History of Programmatic Advertising: Everything You Need to Know

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The History of Programmatic Advertising: Everything You Need to Know

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I chose this article because it had good visuals for explaining some of the history of programmatic in explaining why it exists. Sometimes for something that can be quite dense, visual representations can help the learning process. They have examples of early banner ads and newer ads to show the importance of a good ad that can get noticed and provide impressions for the advertiser. It goes on to explain how programmatic is more efficient and increases the likelihood of satisfaction from the buyers and the sellers.

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US digital display-ad spend is expected to top $27 billion sometime this year. Of this 27 billion, 72% will come from programmatic. That's astronomical! We are talking about almost three of e very four display-ad dollars being spent programmatically.

And considering the relatively short time frame programmatic has had to work with it is even more impressive. Unlike other marketing forms that just adapted to the internet, programmatic was created online. But how and when did programmatic begin?

The History of Programmatic Advertising: Everything You Need to Know

The precursor to programmatic advertising was the banner ad. There was nothing programmatic about this banner ad but the trusty 468×60 banner gave us a template that advertisers would build on for decades. This was the world's first banner advertisement. We have Hotwired.com to thank or hate for it. In 1994, they signed a deal with AT&T to display this ambiguous image on their site for 3 months.

Lots of people did click their mouse right there. It achieved click-through rates between 40 - 50%, which is pretty extraordinary. I mean, just think about that for a second; half of all the people that saw that banner ad clicked on it.

Today, banner ads average an engagement of around 0.06%.

What happened?

There are all kinds of elegant marketing theories, but the law of shitty click-throughs is a personal favorite. 'All marketing strategies will eventually fail,' words you should live by. Substantiated by the entire history of marketing, not just programmatic.

Anyway, time went on, websites were created, and morning shows told us the internet was going to rot our children's brains. In other words, it was slowly legitimized and integrated with society. There was money to be made, and advertisers were eager to buy up more online real-estate.

In 1996, the first ad servers were created to meet the insatiable desire advertisers had to place banners online. DoubleClick was arguably the first ad server, and it continues to supply ads today.

Google purchased the company in 2007 for $3.1 billion.

Even these ad servers couldn't quench the industry's thirst for web ads and in 1998 - 2000 we saw the very first ad networks beginning to take shape.

Brands could now advertise on multiple sites across entire platforms. A lot of ad servers have been released since but, 24/7 Open AdStream, Advertising.com, Value Click, and Zedo, are just some of the noteworthy ad networks that came out before 2000.

Then in 2000 Google released their prodigal AdWords. Originally launched with 350 advertisers, AdWords wasn't the beginning of programmatic advertising, because it only allows campaigns to run within the Google network.

AdWords brought clarity to online advertising. 2 years after AdWords released it had CPC pricing, and the search engine had a tidying effect on the cluttered pre-dotcom crash internet.

In 2013 Google released their display ad network called AdSense. Google's Display Network (GDN) was available through AdWords and limited to Google/DoubleClick properties. Remember I said that Google bought DoubleClick in 2008?

Targeting segments are defined by demographic data, search queries, and basic behavioral targeting. When Google crawls sites, and at the impression, the GDN software reads the text on the webpage. This is then compared to the segment data and relevant ads are served.

I don't want to give the impression that Google was the only company serving ads in this almost programmatic way.

eZula, Gator, IndustryBrains, About.com's and Sprinks were all working on similar ad networks, but Google definitely had a leg up because of the popularity of their search engine, and their acquisition of a company called Applied Semantics and DoubleClick.

AdSense, and the self-serve advertising it offered gave publishers a legitimate channel to monetize their sites, but it also funded an era of trashy spam content.

Made for AdSense became synonymous with spam sites, content farms, and doorway sites that attracted an audience for the clicks.

The Panda Update, in 2011, was Google's way of fighting back.

Marketers need to know about this kind of stuff because it can affect how our sites rank on search engine.

Real-Time Bidding and What You and I Consider Programmatic Advertising

Up until now the history of programmatic has been somewhat linear. That nice chronological series of events where one innovation leads to another is a bit of a simplification, but it's one that I can get away with. It all falls in a discombobulated heap when advertisers catch wind of programmatic and it explodes.

Between 2007 - 2010, ad exchanges like Yahoo's Right Media, Google AdEX, Microsoft AdECN, AdMeld, PubMatic, The Rubicon Project, and Open X all started build RTB software that worked as a DSP, an SSP, an ad exchange, or some combination of the three.

Yahoo's Right Media was arguably the first RTB ad exchange. The exchange started in 2007 and enjoyed a brief moment of brilliance before frizzling out and eventually dying in 2014.

RTB platforms were coming into their own. DSPs and SSPs working together to provide access to vendor-neutral RTB ecosystems meant that advertisers were spending money targeting their core markets directly, seeing better engagement metrics, and at the end of the day making more money.

So far, I have only spoken about desktop programmatic, but since 2014 mobile programmatic has been growing faster than its desktop counterpart, and it has been worth more since 2015.

We use our phones to access the internet more than any other device. Part of programmatic's appeal is that creatives are served across devices with minimal effort.

In spite of mobile programmatic's popularity, it hasn't been smooth sailing. To implement programmatic the ad platform needs to segment the user. This was difficult to do on a mobile device because phones don't have cookies.

90% of the time on a phone is time spent in an application. Therein lies the solution. By tracking users with SDKs and APIs built into mobile applications, programmatic found its way onto mobile devices.

Header Bidding the Recent History of Programmatic Advertising

People started talking about header bidding in 2014 and using it in 2015.

Before header bidding, the programmatic auction was decided with something called the waterfall, and one is very difficult to understand without a firm grasp of the other.

Boromir is right; it is very difficult to say anything meaningful about header bidding without discussing the waterfall that preceded it. Waterfall bidding, also called the daisy chain, showed impressions to DSPs in order of the perceived value of each channel.

It used historical data to show DSPs impressions, and you got to see it first if you have bid more in the past. It didn't matter is the third or fourth DSP was willing to bid higher for that impression. With waterfall bidding, you only got to bid after the pass back. The publisher was missing out on potential revenue, advertisers were wasting their budgets and not reaching their core marketers, and the audience wasn't being shown the most relevant advertisement.

The Future of Programmatic Advertising

Looking at the past of programmatic marketing we can see a technology that has changed to simplify the relationship between advertiser and publisher and show ads to segmented audiences.

The programmatic trend is all about automation, and the reason we automate is to free up people power to focus on the tasks that matter. To this extent I think programmatic will continue to automate and bravely seek out new platforms.

It won't be long before marketers are looking for realistic ways to get impressions on VR, IOTs devices, and HUDS.

Programmatic is focusing more and more on behavioral targeting and better qualifying leads. I think that alongside the rise of AI, big data, and accurate audience segmentation, we will see an explosion in the data a DSP has to bid for impressions, and the ad experience will be almost personal.

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The History of Programmatic Advertising: Everything You Need to Know - Disruptor Daily

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US digital display-ad spend is expected to top $27 billion sometime this year.... ...

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This article does a nice job at giving both pros and cons of advertisers and publishers and not being a favorite of one or the other. It explains that with the ability for being able to target the person you want as an advertiser, you are going to have to deal with some negatives such as high prices for the more specific your target is, but that can be eased because it is an efficient process and that you are able to focus more on one segment where in other traditional forms of media, you weren’t able to do that. The article sums it up by saying, you can’t have it all, but with programmatic, it’s pretty close.

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Programmatic Advertising: Pros and Cons - AdSpruce

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Read all about programmatic ad buying and selling with our simple Pros and Cons guide to the world of Programmatic Advertising.

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The Hits and Misses of Programmatic Ad Buying

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The Hits and Misses of Programmatic Ad Buying

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The article here gets more general than the last one, in not choosing the separate the pros and cons by advertiser and publisher. It is still a good article to reference for the pros and cons for programmatic. The article touches on positives such as cost efficiency, how programmatic takes less time than traditional advertising and how you can reach a broader base. Overall programmatic has changed the way we advertise and this method is the best way to do it right now, until maybe something better comes along?

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Everyone in the mobile advertising industry is going crazy over programmatic buying. While it brings tremendous opportunity and efficiency to ad buying, it also has significant limitations that aren't often discussed. We decided to break down some of the pros and cons, the hits and misses of programmatic ad buying.
See how you can work with Kiip programmatically today.
The Hits:

Brands can reach their key demographics across multiple and diverse publishers.
Programmatic is wide-reaching.
Programmatic platforms are connected to other platforms, which are themselves connected to other platforms. This endless spider web of connections makes it easier than ever before for brands to reach users across countless publishers, as the brand really only needs to have a single touch point on the web (i.e. no direct connection is needed). This means that their marketing message can travel around the world with the click of a button.

It frees up the time of marketing personnel.
Programmatic buying eliminates the time-consuming process of identifying and buying ad space from marketing teams. This frees up time and human resources so that brands can focus on more creative marketing efforts.

It's cost-efficient.
This is probably the biggest benefit of all. Programmatic buying programs automatically find the least expensive ad space for the buyer's targeted audience. This saves buyers the trouble of negotiating for the lowest price and can cut costs tremendously.

The Misses:

Programmatic buying usually produces pretty low engagement rates.
Standard display advertising ads bought programmatically have very low CTR's, about 0.18% for standard media, according to Google 's analysis. In other words, you get what you pay for. If you want cheap ads, you can expect very little in terms of effectiveness.

. It uses the same media over and over, regardless of context.
Programmatic buying is geared toward high volume, "awareness" campaigns, that are proven to be less effective than strategic relevant placements. Kiip was designed to replace this style of ads with contextually relevant rewards that see an average of 12% engagement rate and an increase in mobile awareness that's 9 times the norm, according to Nielsen's study
Programmatic buying comes with an exceptional risk of fraud.The ease of programmatic buying means that, essentially, anyone can buy and anyone can sell. This leaves an open playing field for bad actors. The most common examples of ad fraud are:
Bot traffic (i.e. non-human automated plays, clicks, etc.) and non-viewable ads (ex. An interstitial or video is buried in a feed somewhere and the user never actually even sees it). In 2014 , bot traffic accounted for 56% of all websit traffic and cost the industry about $6.3 billion. One of the biggest reasons ad fraud is rampant is because it's not exactly illegal, which means low-risk and high-potential for scammers
Ads bought programmatically can end up in the wrong place.
Any marketer will tell you that your brand ending up in the wrong place can go bad quickly. A good example of this is the all-too-common practice of re-brokering. For instance , a publisher or ad network could give a programmatic tag to an affiliate of some kind, meaning that advertisers might be tricked into thinking they're serving content on one publisher, but really it's being shown on a different one entirely. Having your brand appear on the wrong website or in the wrong app can be extremely harmful to your brand. That's one of the significant risks of buying through a programmatic platform.

Access Kiip programmatically via open marketplace and PMP deals and take advantage of our unique moments-based inventory, high engagement rates (90%+ VCRs) and deep, continuous insights on campaign performance.

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Brionna Lewis, Digital Marketing Associate

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The Hits and Misses of Programmatic Ad Buying

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Everyone in the mobile advertising industry is going crazy over programmatic buying. While it brings tremendous opportunity and efficiency to ad buying, it also has significant limitations that aren't

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The State of Programmatic Advertising in APAC in 2017

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The State of Programmatic Advertising in APAC in 2017

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This article touches on some of the numbers of APAC, the second largest market in the world. APAC stands for Asia- Pacific. While this doesn’t touch on the rest of the world, I thought it was interesting that it is the second largest market and that programmatic is very much alive. It highlights that mobile growth is driving the need for programmatic and with the amount of people in that region, programmatic is thriving. Digital ad spending in 2017 was $156 billion, 5.6% from last year. Programmatic is helping this area of the world by tapping into the digital lives of the people there and using that to efficiently display ads and create a programmatic system of their own.

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In APAC, programmatic is still in its early stage in several emerging markets, but more mature markets are beginning to compete with the US market adoption rates.

It is critical to have a different analysis for the APAC market based on the diversity of the region. The findings could vary within the region which requires enhanced research in order to have a better understanding.

While Australia and New Zealand are the most advanced markets in the region with an average of 50% programmatic rate, as well as the highest adoption of PMPs, the rate is very low for other countries such as Thailand and Indonesia. Furthermore, the region still has publishers from traditional media background who are still not ready for programmatic.

To better understand the state of programmatic advertising in APAC, let's dig deeper and explore the top programmatic trends in the region during 2017 and what is to expect in the future.

#1 The programmatic in APAC is reaching a new milestone

APAC leads global ad spend growth globally and is to grow up to 33.4% of the global figure by the next year 2019, according to Zenith's latest forecasts. According to Magna, digital Ad spend across APAC increased by 5.6% in 2017 to reach $156bn.

The huge increase in Ad spend is driving programmatic in APAC market to reach a new milestone. According to the forecast, programmatic spending reached $56 billion in 2017, surpassing the programmatic spend in North America. Moreover, the gap between APAC and US in respect to programmatic information is closing so we can expect to see APAC programmatic growth in line with US trends in the coming years.

According to MAGNA, APAC region has the 2nd largest programmatic markets in the world, China as well as the 3rd biggest market, Japan. Furthermore, the region also presents some of the highest growth rates in global programmatic markets such as Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. According to Ad agencies, 93% of marketers in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore are investing in programmatic advertising with almost 32% of companies dedicate more than 50% of their digital advertising to programmatic.

According to DoubleClick Ad Exchange, The top five countries in the world with the fastest-growing Programmatic Direct adoption rates are all in the APAC region: Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and India.

Would it be the turning point in the history of advertising? As the technology infrastructure is catching up with the global market and different AdTech platforms evolve locally to help marketers better understand the users, I am expecting APAC to become the center of programmatic evolution in 2018.

#2: The diversity of the region is shaping the programmatic demand

The diversity of consumer patterns, publishers and local networks across the region is the main factor that is impacting programmatic in APAC. The demand for programmatic as the most reliable solutions for digital advertisers to access the local markets with an effective strategy requires customized tactics.

Google is still the easiest and most popular solution for a lot of the publishers in the region who tend to rely on DoubleClick for Publishers and Ad Exchange. Due to lack the ad tech people, skills or ad operations, so they find Google is an ideal solution.

However, the situation is totally different when it comes to China. According to Eslam El Swedey, Digital Marketing Manager at Curvature Singapore "Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and iPinYou are playing the main role in China's programmatic market. IPinYou will continue to grow in the coming year to become one of the top players". This is not the only case, for instance, Japan's 90% of the market belongs to Dentsu and Hakuhodo.

Businesses understand that accessing the APAC market require a flexible approach and dealing with a variety of providers to get the best projected RTB solutions.

3# Singapore is becoming the digital advertising and programmatic hub

Some people refer to Singapore as "Easy Asia" and I can't agree more. Significantly, most of the international headquarters are settling at Singapore with their marketing and business development in APAC region. While the competition is expected to intensify with Hong Kong and Shanghai to access the China market, Singapore remains the best choice as a digital advertising hub. Among the most strategic reasons is to benefit from advertising giants such as Facebook and Google who might have several limitations in a city like Shanghai.

Another main advantage of Singapore as advertising hub is money. As huge budgets that need to be paid for advertising, the secure financial system and stable exchange rates in Singapore provides an ideal situation for billions of dollars industry.

In the last few years, we have seen more and more advertising giants, DSPs, Publishers and AdTech agencies expanding rapidly in Singapore. Furthermore, Procter & Gamble, the world's largest advertiser, are moving their regional power bases to Singapore. We expect to see a major increase in programmatic adoption and advertising technologies coming out of Singapore and targeting the whole APAC region.

#4 Programmatic still challenging in APAC with majority of consumers buy offline

According to Google research study which was published at in July 2017, the majority of countries within the APAC still buy offline. The study examines how consumers in APAC research and buy products for financial services and baby care and the findings are not a big surprise especially for Singaporean marketers.

Programmatic is still struggling with the providing a profitable alternative to advertisers. The challenge is bigger with markets like Indonesia, Vietnam, India, and Singapore which doesn't have the full potential yet for online conversion. However, the researchers expect the programmatic to grown in SEA region driven by a potential increase in online shopping.

Certainly, some industries in the APAC market are already fully relying on programmatic such as travel, other industries such as services are struggling with the programmatic conversion rates. Singapore as an example has a small geography which that contributes to why marketers still not investing in programmatic and prefer traditional mediums with a higher return on ad spend (ROAS).

#5: Mobile growth is driving the programmatic in APAC

Mobile is driving the highest growth in impressions in APAC region, which is generating a high demand for programmatic. According to DoubleClick Ad Exchange, there was over 150% growth in Programmatic Direct mobile impressions in APAC, followed by EMEA at 120% growth. Mobile impressions grew more than 15X in 2016 at Indonesia and tripled in more than eight APAC countries: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The huge amount of mobile growth in APAC requires a more sophisticated targeting and RTB which allows companies to distinguish their potential consumer and increase the efficiency of their advertising bidding.

#6: The need for greater efficiency of video impressions

Video emerged as the fastest-growing format in programmatic deals across platforms and throughout the APAC. Video has proved to be an efficient way to reach audiences and monetize the publishers premium inventory.

According to the numbers from 2016, programmatic video impressions in APAC grew to 29X the impressions in comparison with the previous year. Programmatic video impressions grew 6.5X faster than the display in 2016, and India and Australia are leading the way with total programmatic video impressions served in the APAC region.

The fastest adopters of programmatic video in the world are all in the APAC region: India, China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. China is ramping up programmatic video impressions the fastest of all countries in the APAC region.

#7: Retargeting and attribution is the key focus of marketers in APAC

According to the outcomes of the recent study by Adroll, retargeting and attribution are the key focuses of marketers in APAC in 2017. Adroll report shows the average APAC marketer is spending between 25% and 50% of their digital advertising budget on retargeting and 83% of marketers plan to increase their mobile retargeting budget in the next year.

The study shows that the growing cost of development and user acquisition are not slowing down, which force marketers to prefer the engagement with existing users over acquiring new ones who may or may not perform well. Technically there is a gap in this area but the advertisers are facing the pressure of the demand for clearly measurable ROI.

The rise of attribution models is driving APAC marketers to pay more and more attention to marketing analytics and cross-channel attribution. Based on Adroll's study, 79% of marketers believe attribution is critical to advertising success and 99% of marketers track view-through conversions in this region. Over 30% of Australian marketing professionals said that they spend over half of their yearly budgets on campaign measurement.

#8: What to expect in 2018? AI, Interactive Ads, and Personalization

According to experts in the market, the AI would have a big impact on the programmatic in the region. "Last few years it was about programmatic but this year and continuous years, the market will tend to dive more into 3 categories, 1) AI automated optimization based on Life Time Value LTV. 2) The interactive ad types like Facebook full page ad and Instagram stories. 3) Personalization will play an effective role as personalized dynamic banners give seamless experience. This improving conversion rate." said JK, a consultant and marketing strategist.

To conclude, APAC has a strong programmatic growth potential but it has also a number of fatal limitations, such as lack of qualified talents, extremely diverse and fragmented local ad networks, issues with access to consumer data, and difficulty to scale RTB transactions. The region still requires a more solid understanding of the importance and benefits of programmatic advertising.

The advantage of programmatic reach is currently critical for APAC marketers to increase conversion rates and decrease the number of resources required to cover this geographically large region. Targeting different locales with such diversity of languages, networks, and consumer behavior are pushing for further procedures in terms of buying audience on premium publishers or local networks and connect a simpler activation on both sides. This demand will keep pushing towards a higher rate of programmatic adoption and budget share coming from performance marketing teams in the region.

Share your insights and thoughts on the topic and write down what do you think will be a key trend? What is the next big thing will shift this market?

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The State of Programmatic Advertising in APAC in 2017

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Revealing the state of Programmatic advertising in APAC in 2017. APAC region has the 2nd largest programmatic markets in the world but programmatic is still in its early stage in several emerging markets with Asia-Pasific, but more mature markets are beginning to compete with the US market adoption rates.

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1.     The Author has knowledge, but not a good background in programmatic advertising, I was trying to find authors with the best backgrounds

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Real-time transactions are enjoying considerable popularity in the realm of digital advertising. Known as programmatic ad buying, the concept relies upon computer algorithms buying and selling ad space on the fly.

This sounds like a wonderful idea if you're trying to hit a given audience at a particular time, particularly when married to dynamic ads (or personalized content) for your prospective targets.

But like so many good things, there are challenges as well.

Let's take a look at some of the pros and cons of programmatic ad buying.

First, the positives...

Employs real-time data

Because buying is done in real-time, your placements happen immediately as well.

This is great for an advertiser, since you can minimize the possibility of buying the wrong traffic, because users can be directly matched to the targeted data you provide. For instance, let's say you are trying to garner interest in your premium gaming app.

You can deliver real-time ads to potential users in another app who are likely to download your game. This results in considerable cost savings and a better return on your advertising investment.

Outstanding efficiency

With programmatic, as we mentioned above, you set the exact criteria you want to target, whether it's geographic, certain devices, a specific demographic, or all of the above.

The algorithm will find users meeting your parameters and place ads in front of them. You can also set a cost budget to prevent overspends-as the system will work to find the audience you've prescribed, within the budget parameters you set.

The algorithms can also be instructed to find the most affordable space for your targeted audience. Because it's all done machine to machine, you're freed of the need to negotiate the rate.

Narrowly-focused targeting

The specificity with which you can focus your efforts is quite remarkable. In fact, some mobile marketing platforms offer targeting based on users who are most likely to engage within an app.

This means your ad will be narrowly focused on acquiring users who create a profile on day one, pay for premium or make in-app purchases rather than just download an app. This isn't just programmatic ad buying, it's a smarter approach to mobile marketing in general.

And now, the negatives...

Fraud potential

Because there is no direct interaction between the publisher and you, many experts feel it's somehow easier for the publisher to deliver "bot" traffic, as opposed to real people.

In programmatic's defense, this is a possibility in any form of digital advertising. Further, the prime purveyors of programmatic are diligently working on ways to eradicate bot traffic.

Non-viewable ads can be an issue too. Even though they appear to have been placed, they're buried, never reaching a user, while an unscrupulous publisher claims a placement.

Ad misdirects

Occasionally a publisher will forward an ad to an affiliate entity, where the ad is in fact displayed. However, it doesn't reach its intended audience.

Known as re-brokering, this can potentially have a harmful effect upon a brand. Consider the consequences of an ad for an adult-oriented product somehow winding up on an app for children.

While it might sound farfetched, it could happen.

Targeting narrowly can be expensive

If you're looking to focus your messaging with laser-like precision and you're working with a platform capable of doing so, they know what they have and charge for it accordingly.

To pinpoint "Becky" on her way to a brick-and-mortar store with an ad promoting your ecommerce app, you'll need to be ready to pay the premium required to do so.

Programmatic is one of the most efficient ways to buy and sell ads yet created. However, just as with every other aspect of life and business, there are upsides to programmatic and there are downsides.

After reviewing the pros and cons of programmatic ad buying here, you'll need to decide if the attributes outweigh the disconnects for what you're trying to accomplish.

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Pros & Cons of Programmatic Ad Buying * Technically Easy

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Real-time transactions are enjoying considerable popularity in the realm of digital advertising. Known as programmatic ad buying, the concept relies upon computer algorithms buying and selling ad space on the fly. This sounds like a wonderful idea if you're trying to hit a given audience at a particular time, particularly when married to dynamic ads (or personalized content) for your prospective targets.

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More marketers take programmatic buying in-house, ANA says

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More marketers take programmatic buying in-house, ANA says

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1.     The article from marketing dive Didn’t go as in depth as I thought subject deserved.

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Dive Brief:

A new survey from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) whose findings were made available to Marketing Dive found that 35% of the trade group's members are expanding their in-house programmatic media buying and reducing the role of external agencies in handling these tasks.

The switch to in-house programmatic buying is a noticeable uptick from an ANA/Forrester report from last year, where only 14% of ANA marketers reported reducing the role of external agencies in favor of going in-house. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they are concerned about brand safety issues around programmatic advertising; 85% are focused on programmatic desktop online display, 71% on desktop online video and 62% on mobile video.

The top benefits of programmatic buying, according to those surveyed, are better audience targeting, the ability to build audience reach and real-time optimization. Most respondents said they have one staff member who is 100% dedicated to programmatic advertising duties and three employees who are involved in some way in programmatic initiatives.

Dive Insight:

Marketers' wariness toward programmatic has grown sharply this year as problems such as brand safety, fake news and general non-transparency in the digital media space have bubbled to the top of the industry conversation. Nearly half of marketers don't know where their ads run online due to programmatic strategies, according to a study by the Society for New Communications Research of the Conference Board released earlier this month.

Programmatic will remain the go-to approach for many - a Publicis Groupe Zenith forecast estimates programmatic will make up 67% of all display ads by 2019 - but, as evidenced by the ANA survey, more industry professionals are looking to wrest back control of their media investments by moving activities in-house. The ANA's findings are supported by other recent studies, including one from Adobe released this week that forecasts 62% of marketers will bring their programmatic media buying in-house by 2022, per The Drum.

The trend is another potential blow to agencies which have in the past several years seen their relationships with brand clients shaken by myriad issues pertaining to transparency and a failure to address the challenges of digital transformation. The ANA research found that undisclosed programmatic models with agency partners - which can hide agency margins and fees and sometimes doesn't disclose final bid prices to clients - are on the decline, with only 19% of respondents reporting they opted-in to that model, down from 34% in last year's ANA/Forrester survey.

"[Marketers are] making important changes to their programmatic buying practices to address media transparency concerns," ANA CEO Bob Liodice said in a statement made available in the release. "Specifically, they're moving sensitive responsibilities in-house and enhancing decision making by better understanding their costs and media investment transactions. We urge all marketers to contemplate these developments and consider following suit."

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More marketers take programmatic buying in-house, ANA says

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Marketing news, voices and jobs for industry professionals. Optimized for your mobile phone.

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Marketers weigh the pros and cons of programmatic

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Marketers weigh the pros and cons of programmatic

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This article was too vague and short and didn’t provide the length of material I was looking for.

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The programmatic display advertising marketplace in the U.S. will total $22 billion this year, up nearly 40% compared to 2015, According to eMarketer. Perhaps more importantly, these kinds of media buys will account for more than two thirds of the entire U.S. display marketplace.

Programmatic media buying- broadly defined as the use of technology and algorithms to effect the sale, purchase, and delivery of advertising, and specifically digital ads in this case (think: the Google Display Network, RTBs, and PMPs)-has grown dramatically in recent years. Indeed, eMarketer has gone so far as to claim that "Programmatic is extremely efficient and unparalleled in its ability to pair rich audience data with ad inventory and targeting." As such, marketers are rushing to incorporate it into their marketing plans.

Given its meteoric rise in the digital marketing scene over the past 36 months, though, it should come as no surprise that there's a good deal of misunderstanding surrounding what the tactic can and cannot do, and where marketers need to tread carefully. In its second year examining the issues, ExchangeWire and OpenX combined to publish " The evolving perception of online marketing quality in programmatic advertising " last month.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Marketers have a love-hate relationship with programmatic. While advertisers are spending more than ever on programmatic, they also report having less confidence in the tactic than they did last year, and believe fraud rates are 5X what they deem acceptable. This kind of volatility is common across most digital tactics-and makes sense, given the newness of the category, its relatively low cost (compared to TV, radio, and high-end print), and complexity. Even when it's working, it's still going to cause a bit of angst.

Marketers are concerned about viewability and fraud. Among the most experienced users of programmatic-U.S. advertisers-only 3-in-10 survey respondents say that marketplace quality is a 'very serious' issue, while more than 90% of respondents in EMEA and APAC believe that's the case. These are two high-profile issues that the industry needs to get under control-fast. But even with major media outlets keeping the issues in the news, experienced marketers know that a tactic like programmatic (warts and all) is going to continue to generate favorable ROI for the foreseeable future.

Programmatic offers value. While in 2015, 95% of survey respondents believed that programmatic advertising offered good value for the money, that percentage dipped slightly to 86% in 2016. But one interviewee explained: "Programmatic has become a victim of tall poppy syndrome where everyone is trying to knock it off the perch; people have increased their knowledge of the tactic, and more aware of its pros and cons - so as it becomes much more mainstream, I think the satisfaction number has only one way to go, and that's down".

The programmatic silver bullet train is nearing the end of the line. Just as is the case with any hot, new tactic or channel, there are lots of easy wins to be had in the early days. But as programmatic becomes increasingly popular and pervasive, it will become more difficult-not less-to implement successful programs. Vendors are rushing to invest in their programmatic offerings, making it more difficult for advertisers to determine the best fit for their organizations (RTB? PMP?), and publishers-the providers of inventory-are scrambling to find their way in this new world, too. Not to mention the onslaught of mobile into the mix, which will account for about 70% of U.S. activity this year and which one expert describes as "just a messy consumer experience".

To say that programmatic advertising is wreaking havoc in the digital marketing sector would be an understatement. But marketers that maintain a steady hand on the wheel as they roll out programmatic strategies and resist panicking or over-correcting in the face of inevitable bumps-in-the-road and sharp turns will be amply rewarded.
Tim Bourgeois is the executive editor at ChiefDigitalOfficer.net, a global community of senior digital and marketing professionals. Follow him @ChiefDigOfficer and connect with him on LinkedIn.

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Marketers weigh the pros and cons of programmatic - Digital Content Next

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Information for and about the digital publishing industry from the leading trade association dedicated to representing the interests of high-quality digital publishers before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. Includes recent news and latest research on the industry, as well as membership information.

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Understanding Programmatic Advertising: A Brief Look at Its History

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Understanding Programmatic Advertising: A Brief Look at Its History

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1.     This article was also lacking details and meaningful insight.

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To even better understanding how programmatic advertising became the way it is now, I will touch briefly on its history later in this article. For those of you who do not have the time to go through the whole article, here are an infograhpic for you:

The first display ad

The Oct. 27, 1994 issue of HotWired, the web version of Wired went down in history to be the first site to run true banner ads. The ad was for AT&T's "You Will" campaign; clicking on the banner brought users to a microsite with lists of the top museums and other mind-expanding sites. The ad was a huge success and had a mind-blowing click-through rate of 44%. This was around 22 times more than the average 2-3% CTR of the "top performing" rich media ads today; the average current CTR of a regular banner now is around 0.1%.

Rise of ad servers and ad networks

By 1996, the amount of internet users and number of websites grew tremendously with faster connection speed (the good old days when everyone was using 56K dial-up modems). Advertisers and publisher who initially brought and sold impressions manually found it increasingly difficult to keep track of their banners; imagine having to manage hundreds of different creatives from different advertisers at the same time.

Companies such as DoubleClick created ad servers which helped in producing and distributing ads on the web. Instead of having to manage creatives for different publishers separately, advertisers can use ad servers to manage all their creatives in one place; the opposite is true for publishers too.

As the web grew exponentially, it became difficult to manage the complicated relationship between advertisers and different publishers to serve ads across different websites. As a result, the first ad networks were born in 1998. These ad networks bundled different sites together and sold their impressions to advertisers; so instead of having to contact various websites separately, an advertiser only had to contact one ad network with connections to these websites to get the impressions it wanted.

In 2000, Google launched AdWords (inspired by GoTo.com); it served ads that were nothing like that of other ad networks have been delivering . Users were shown contextually relevant ads while searching on Google's search engine. This forever changed the landscape of digital advertising; advertisers get to bid for impressions in an auction to show ads to the right people at the right time.

Following up on its great success in Adwords, Google developed its own massive banner ad network (Adsense) in 2003. It later purchased Youtube in 2006 and DoubleClick in 2008. As of today, Google still holds the largest market share in digital advertising.

A New Era

In 2007, Apple reinvented the mobile phone and it changed the world forever; instead of being limited by bulky desktops or laptops, we now access the internet on-the-go and in random places using smartphones. Google followed shortly in Apple's footstep with the Android OS.

Over the few years after the launch of the smartphones, the price of internet-connected devices plummeted and internet usage grew exponentially.

Even our consumption behavior changed. Daily usage grew by 50%.

The devices we use to surf the internet differ at different period of a day.

Targeting the increasing amount of mobile internet users, advertisers shift more of their ad spending budget to the mobile platform.

Other than drastically increasing the amount of internet users, the increase in mobile internet users also gave rise to geo-targeting. Not everyone will bring a laptop with them everywhere they go. However, it is pretty safe to say that most people in developed countries will bring their phone with them wherever they go. This made geo-targeting a lot more useful than before; now advertisers can even target consumers at the right place.

The Rise of Real-time Bidding

Born in 2009, Real-time bidding (RTB) is a method for buying and selling online display advertising placements in real time on a per-impression basis, via programmatic instantaneous auction, similar to financial markets. With real-time bidding, advertisers bid on an impression and, if the bid is won, the the relevant creative message is instantly displayed on the publisher's site.

Taking place in ad exchanges such as Google Exchange, RTB is an elegant solution to increase the scalability of digital advertising and provide true audience targeting. RTB not only benefits publishers by allowing them to sell their inventory to the highest bidders, advertisers also benefit by being able to evaluate inventories impression by impression to increase their reach to target customers.

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Understanding Programmatic Advertising: A Brief Look at Its History

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In the past, if an advertiser wanted to show their ads on a particular publisher's site, they only had the option to do this manually. This is the traditional direct sales that so many marketers and...

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1.     This article provided good information, but not enough to be selected as the best source.

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A Peek Into Programmatic Advertising | CHIEF

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Programmatic advertising has been buzzing in the media world for quite sometime now. A warranted frenzy, given that programmatic advertising has reshaped the way digital advertising is bought and used. While originally receiving market traction with direct response geared campaigns, programmatic has evolved to include technology-driven brand awareness campaigns.

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Policy and Programmatic Importance of Spatial Alignment of Data Sources

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Policy and Programmatic Importance of Spatial Alignment of Data Sources

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1.     This is an old article, it does elaborate on this topic, but I wanted to use a more current article.

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American Public Health Association (APHA) publications

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The American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) from the American Public Health Association (APHA) publications

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The American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) from the American Public Health Association (APHA)

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10 Things you should know about programmatic but were afraid to ask.

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10 Things you should know about programmatic but were afraid to ask.

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1.     This article is a good one to run through, but as for extensive data, I found that it was not sufficient

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As programmatic marketing evolves and reaches new heights of complexity, the more questions, discussions, and even debates, undoubtedly pop up. For people new to programmatic, it can feel daunting to even know where to start, but lend me your eyes for 5 minutes and I'll try to give you a few pointers.
What programmatic buying is - and what it isn't.

1. Programmatic buying is not a channel or a display ad platform, but a form of buying that includes display ads. But it also includes video, text ads, native advertising, etc. It is not limited to only reaching users on desktop, it can be executed cross-device, and OOH even, depending on your technology of choice.

2. Programmatic marketing is not rocket science. Yes, it requires specialist competence within several different disciplines to be executed well, but so does CRM, social and TV. You should not throw everything you know about marketing out the window - the principles are the same, but the possibilities are greater than before, thanks way to better tools and technology. Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to understand the technology powering programmatic buying to conquer programmatic strategically. I assume you haven't asked yourself how email actually works or which protocols are used when you send newsletters? The most important thing to grasp is how (and why) to use programmatic, not how all the nuts and bolts work.

3. Programmatic buying is first and foremost about data. It starts and ends with data, it is what fuels this ecosystem. Data makes it possible to reach the right user, in the right context, at the right time - with the right message. Data gives you deeper insights into your customers, campaigns, creatives and audiences. Data makes all the difference, both good and bad. We separate between 1st, 2nd and 3rd party data.
1st party data: Data collected directly from a company's customers.
2nd party data: Data shared between two partners, e.g. publisher data shared with an advertiser.

3rd party data: Data provided by an external data provider not directly involved in the transaction.

4. Programmatic buying is about technology. Technology is the enabler of programmatic marketing and buying, and thus it is the foundation on which everything is built. Technology allows us to connect advertiser data with the right audience and underpins modern media planning and -buying. Technology is the process automation within programmatic buying.

5. Programmatic buying is all about people! Data and technology are pointless without the talent and skill to connect them. Understanding the local media landscape is still an extremely important aspect of programmatic, and an undoubtedly human one. Technology serves to automate tedious and repetitive tasks, and gives us better tools to create better efficiencies. But we still need talent to take full advantage of technology's potential and to keep challenging and evolving the technology in question.

6. Programmatic buying is about reducing advertising loss. Identifying and targeting specific audiences instead of taking a media-centric approach and combining it with frequency capping across media and devices, reduces advertising loss and creates better effect. In other words: More for less.

7. Programmatic is not cesspool of ad fraud. Yes, on a global scale, there are massive amounts of fraud, and the Nordics are of course affected by fraud as well, but this goes for all digital marketing. Buying ads via programmatic platforms (DSP: Demand Side Platforms) will present certain pros and cons. The cons are that it is so easy for non-experienced buyers to buy ads that the risk of buying fraudulent ads skyrockets. The pros are the access to a large array of tools to counter ad fraud, both integrated into the platforms and through 3rd parties. With the right technology, strategies and expertise, it is possible to reduce the risk of ad fraud. But it will never completely vanish.

8. Programmatic buying is not synonymous with ad networks. In terms of effect though, you can compare and evaluate ad networks up against programmatic buying. As an advertiser, you should choose the solution that gives you the best results on the KPIs you set, both short- and long term.

9. A DSP is not a trading desk, which is not a media. To compare agencies' trading desks with DSPs and media is dead wrong. A DSP is a buying platform from vendors like Adform, AppNexus, Delta Projects, DoubleClick, MediaMath, The TradeDesk, etc. They are technology providers. A trading desk is a specialist company or department that utilises DSPs to buy media. Media is still media, enabling their inventory through their platforms (SSP: Supply Side Platform) so that trading desks can buy their inventory through their DSP. A trading desk is in other words a media buyer.

10. Programmatic buying is all about creating better efficiencies. It is not up for discussion whether programmatic buying should give you better effect per invested krone, Euro or Dollar if you compare to similar activities. Given that you as an advertiser have clear, measurable KPIs, it should be easy to evaluate your activities. If the results you're getting on your programmatic activities are not up to par, you should reallocate your budgets to the activities that do give you the desired effect. But please make sure you're measuring effect on actual goals and business outcomes, not proxies, like clicks.

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10 Things you should know about programmatic but were afraid to ask. | Amnet Group

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As programmatic marketing evolves and reaches new heights of complexity, the more questions, discussions, and even debates, undoubtedly pop up. For people new to programmatic, it can feel daunting to even know where to start, but lend me your eyes ...

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The Rise of Programmatic Advertising and Its Impact on eCommerce

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The Rise of Programmatic Advertising and Its Impact on eCommerce

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1.     Another good article, that just didn’t provide the amount of detail I was looking for.

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Remember the time when you actually had to hire someone to place your ads? These days, companies are investing a lot more in marketing solutions that eliminate human error, inefficiency and time-wasting, like programmatic advertising.

Artificially intelligent ad-buying robots are probably the future of advertising but don't go firing your marketing team just yet. You still need real workers to strategize, optimize and add a human touch to your ads. Plus, there are still a few kinks to work out.

Programmatic advertising employs digital advertising software to buy ads on auctions, sometimes using real-time bidding. It may sound a lot like a long-winded explanation of automated software, something we've long used in the digital enterprise, but industry experts are at odds with the official nomenclature.

On one hand, automated ad buying sounds more straightforward and less hands-on. Still, programmatic ad buying has come to represent automated software specifically within advertising, so it feels more descriptive for marketing teams.

It doesn't really matter what you call it, so long as you understand that it's something you should be using if your company relies on digital marketing. The widespread acceptance of programmatic buying - and artificial intelligence as a whole - is seriously shaking up the eCommerce world, for better or for worse.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the power to spot fake reviews, deliver customer-tailored product suggestions and provide customer support via chatbots. It can also take care of some of the heavy lifting in the advertising department.

It Will Make Data Even More Important

Just when you thought you didn't need one more reason to invest in a data-driven marketing approach, programmatic advertising comes along. Automated software is smart, but it relies on large quantities of data. Your media buying efforts are for naught if you don't spend the time gathering metrics on different demographics.

The data will let your digital ad buyers promote and create custom, targeted campaigns so you get more ad impressions and conversions. You can use eCommerce analytics by Springbot to gather these key data points and see how you measure up against the competition.

It Will Make Things More Personalized

Advertisers and publishers have long looked for ways to make advertising more personalized. In fact, 71 percent of consumers prefer personalized ads, with nearly half citing the fact that a reduction in irrelevant ads is its greatest benefit.

In the world of eCommerce, artificial intelligence and big data will help further play to the shopper's desire for tailored content. From data-driven product recommendations to individualized display ads, AI is already clutch for a personalized user experience. Programmatic online advertising is only set up to bolster that.

It Will Make Things Easier for You

We don't think that programmatic technology will replace in-house teams. But we do think it has the capability to seriously shake up the advertising space so that you might not need as many employees on board. New programmatic solutions are picking up a lot of the slack for the everyday e-marketer by intelligently automating ad exchanges, discounts and even A/B testing.

It Will Make Advertising More Cost-Effective

We mentioned earlier that this kind of display advertising could be performed in real-time. Contrary to popular belief, not all programmatic ads employ real-time bidding (RTB) protocols. RTB is a kind of programmatic advertising protocol for automatic bidding, placement and purchasing of ads in an auction format, like Google AdWords or the auction platforms on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites. These technologies can help improve your click-through rates while maximizing ROI.

The Caveat

There is one downside to note about programmatic advertising. In September, AdWeek reported that a third of all programmatic impressions are likely fraudulent. In other words, your ad campaigns that appear successful may not perform as well in real-time. Ad fraud is said to affect real-time bidding more than direct programmatic purchasing- the act of buying guaranteed impressions in advance. Plus, you're probably more likely to fall victim to it when you place a video ad versus another kind of online marketing.

Despite this, Forrester predicts that AI investments will gain businesses an estimated $1.2 trillion per year by 2020. While developers and ad platforms iron out some of the big issues associated with programmatic buying, we can't afford to sit back and ignore the technology as a whole. There are many ways, like programmatic ads, that artificial intelligence can help, so it's not a bad idea to spend some time looking into new AI solutions for your online business.

Interested in exploring ways to automate your online marketing efforts? Schedule a chat with one of our eCommerce marketing experts to get started.

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The Rise of Programmatic Advertising and Its Impact on eCommerce

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Stop by the Springbot blog to get some insight to the world of programmatic advertising, including information on how it's set to shape the eCommerce world as well as some of the common problems with the software.

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WHY PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING IS IMPORTANT

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WHY PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING IS IMPORTANT

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1.    Good article, just not as good as some of my other ones.

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If you haven't yet heard of programmatic advertising or know how it works, you need to catch up with the times. Traditionally, buying and selling display advertising on the Internet worked a lot like display advertising in print, television, and other more old-school mediums. It required an interaction between an advertiser and a sales person, the negotiation of a purchase of ad space, and so on. Essentially, it needed two humans, speaking with each other.

Not so with programmatic. Programmatic advertising is changing the way online display advertising (and even some more "traditional" advertising) works. According to eMarketer, programmatic digital display ad spending jumped from $10B in 2014 to $22B this year, and programmatic is going to account for over two thirds of all digital display ad buying.

Whether you're a marketing agency looking to branch out or a business that wants to try something new, you should know not just what programmatic is, but what makes it so critical to the evolving digital marketing landscape.

So What Exactly Is Programmatic Advertising?

Depending on who you ask, programmatic advertising is either a software solution or the simple automation of display ad buying. Sometimes it's both. In reality, it can be either one. Programmatic advertising brings data into the ad buying equation and makes the process both automated and programmable through algorithms and software platforms. This cuts out the key element of the old ad buying interaction that required a salesperson and makes the whole process more efficient.

People are still involved, however. Marketing agencies and large businesses often dedicate entire teams to management of programmatic buying, tweaking the targeting and optimization of buys as well as overseeing any parts of the process that aren't completely automated, which are actually many. Like with any new advanced technology, programmatic ad buying can't do everything on its own (so don't worry, this isn't a case of jobs being entirely replaced by robots); it still needs monitoring by highly skilled people who understand marketing data and trends, and can nudge the technology in the right direction when needed.

There are a few different types of programmatic to know about. There can be quite a few different types depending on who you ask, but here are the basics:

Open Auction/Open Marketplace/Real-Time Bidding (RTB) - Real-time bidding has so many names because RTB can refer to both a programmatic ad type and a type of transaction. Hence why it also gets referred to as Open Auction or Open Marketplace. RTB is the most basic and currently the most common kind of programmatic, with ad inventory available to all bidders in an open auction with, you guessed it, real-time bidding.

Private Marketplace (PMP) - These marketplaces are a little more exclusive. Access to them is granted only to certain buyers, or even a single buyer, and even the ad inventory might be restricted or specially selected. The primary purpose of PMP is to exercise control over where your ads will run, which is why the buyers are limited.

Automated Guaranteed - Like the name says, this is the most heavily automated of the programmatic ad types. In Automated Guaranteed, the ad inventory is reserved in advance, and pricing comes fixed. Additionally, the RFP and campaign routing process is fully automated through a software platform. This type is rapidly growing in popularity versus RTB.

Now that you know what programmatic is all about, you need to know why it's become so popular so quickly in the last two years.

Why Is Programmatic Advertising So Important?

There are four main reasons. Let's break them down:

1. Scale: the power of programmatic is its incredible scalability at a volume direct buy could never have reached. In the days of direct buy, or even in current "traditional" media buys, you would be limited by smaller inventories and lesser reach. The power of programmatic allows you to reach a vast amount of people all across the Internet wherever they go through the power of retargeting. Programmatic allows you to purchase any inventory available on the Internet, provided you have the budget available.

2. Real-Time Flexibility: Another problem with direct buy is that it doesn't permit any adjustments once your purchase has been made. It's set, and all you can do is let it run its course regardless of whatever performance you're seeing. Programmatic, however, allows you to make changesin real time based on the impressions that you're getting.

3. Targeting: With programmatic, you can also layer in way more targeting criteria pretty cheaply in order to reach exactly the audiences you want, all at the previously mentioned huge scale. For example, you could layer thousands of specific in-market audiences into your targeting reaching all across the Internet and make your advertising much more efficient, saving you money on spend while making you more money per impression. When it comes to big data, demographics, interests, in-market audiences, and more are only the start of the kind of layers you could add to your targeting. Layering in targeting criteria all through one platform is one of the biggest benefits to programmatic advertising.

4. Efficiency: Here at Wpromote, we use programmatic advertising for some of our biggest clients, and we do it to make their spending more efficient. For example, if we have extra money in a client's advertising budget, we can plug it into their programmatic partner and layer in that client's very specific targeting criteria. Because programmatic is so cost-efficient, even a small piece of budget can go a very long way, and that client will make back four to five times what they've spent.

So the question you may be coming away from all this with is: should I be using programmatic advertising? To decide that, it really depends on whether or not you have a need for any or all of the four reasons stated above, and if you think the types of programmatic would work for you. What isn't in question is the surging importance of programmatic in display advertising and why it's become so critical to digital marketers!

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Why Programmatic Advertising Is Important

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If you haven't yet heard of programmatic advertising or know how it works, you need to catch up with the times. Traditionally, buying and selling display advertising on the Internet worked a lot like display advertising in print, television, and other more old-school mediums. It required an interaction between an

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PROS AND CONS OF HEADER BIDDING IN DIGITAL ADVERTISING

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PROS AND CONS OF HEADER BIDDING IN DIGITAL ADVERTISING

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1.     This article does a really good job at breaking header bidding down, but I needed something that covered the whole subject of programmatic advertising.

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MyMobileLyfe | Programmatic Advertising & Marketing Automation Tools

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In the programmatic advertising world, it can sometimes seem as if change is the only constant. Take the emergence of header bidding for example. This service has been gaining popularity in the advertising world for the past year or so and is rapidly becoming the go-to option for many top publishers. But, what is it really?

To put it simply, header bidding is akin to a bidding war. It is a browser-based approach that gives publishers the ability to offer programmatic inventory for sale before the ad servers decides which campaign they are going to use.

This preview of sorts helps publishers determine the true value of an impression on the programmatic marketplace, without an obligation to sell. In this way, header bidding gives publishers the ability to offer the impression for sale in real time, compare bids, and sell to the highest bidder.
Pros

Offers publishers the chance to see an up to 50% increase in CPM and, as a result, revenue as well.

Provides advertisers with the first choice of premium inventory before an ad exchange.

Cons

Dependent on the complexity of the website, each individual publisher will have a different experience with header bidding. To ensure success, publishers must hire AdOps specialists who can input and update code on a regular basis.

Gaining access to premium inventory isn't cheap. This may not be a big deal to advertisers who have big budgets to work with, but it can be disastrous for smaller brands. And because header bidding companies have total access to publisher inventory, advertisers can no longer take advantage of guaranteed deals with publishers.

The Bottom Line
Header bidding gives publishers the ability to increase their revenue while simultaneously providing advertisers with access to viewable, premium inventory. Furthermore, there is evidence about brands that use header bidding noticing significant increases in their ROI. In short, header bidding's advantages far outweigh the negatives.

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Pros and Cons of Header Bidding in Digital Advertising | Programmatic Advertising | MyMobileLyfe | Programmatic Advertising & Marketing Automation Tools

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In the programmatic advertising world, it can sometimes seem as if change is the only constant. Take the emergence of header bidding for example. This service has been gaining popularity in the advertising world for the past year or so and is rapidly becoming the go-to option for many top publishers.